Design a professional YouTube banner right in your browser. 3D text, 11 fonts, gradients, safe-zone guide, and 4K PNG export. Free, no sign-up, nothing uploaded.
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100% Private & Secure: All design work happens in your browser using HTML5 canvas. Your images never leave your device.
A YouTube banner is the wide image at the top of your channel. It's the first thing visitors see when they land on your page. Think of it as the sign above a shop door — it tells people what your channel is about before they watch a single video.
Unlike a thumbnail, which you see for a fraction of a second while scrolling, a banner is the anchor of your channel identity. Viewers see it when they open your channel, subscribe, or check who made a video. It needs to work at every screen size, from a phone in portrait mode to a 4K TV in landscape.
YouTube asks for banners at 2560 by 1440 pixels. That's the full canvas. But here's what most people miss: YouTube almost never shows the whole thing.
Every device crops the banner differently. Here's the breakdown:
| Device | What's Visible | Safe Width |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile (portrait) | Small central square | About 1546 px wide, 423 px tall — the safe zone |
| Tablet | Wider strip | ~1855 px wide |
| Desktop browser | Almost everything | ~2120 px wide |
| YouTube TV | Full canvas | Full 2560 px |
When you upload an image or pick a gradient, the tool overlays a green guide on the canvas. That guide marks exactly where YouTube's mobile crop line falls. Anything inside the guide is guaranteed to be visible on every device. Anything outside becomes "extra space" that only desktop and TV viewers will see.
Move your text and logo inside the guide. Then hide the guide from the Safe Zone dropdown before exporting. That's how you get a banner that works everywhere.
Pick one of two paths:
Click Add Heading Layer. Type your channel name. Use a big, bold font — Anton, Bebas Neue, or Russo One work best. Size should be 200–300 pixels at 2560×1440. Turn on 3D Depth (10–30 px) so the text pops off the background.
Click Add Sub-Heading Layer. Common options: "New videos every Tuesday," "Tech reviews that actually help," or your Instagram handle. Smaller font, 60–100 px, sits underneath the channel name.
Drag your text into the green guide. Center it horizontally. If you have a logo, add it to one corner inside the safe zone, not at the far edges where mobile will crop it.
If the text blends into the background, do one of these:
Click Export 4K PNG. The file saves at the full 2560×1440 resolution. YouTube shrinks it automatically. You get the sharpest result on TVs.
After reviewing hundreds of top channels, the same patterns show up again and again. Here's what they do:
The best banners show one thing — a face, a product, or a bold word. Not five logos and eight text lines. If a viewer can't tell what the channel is about in three seconds, the banner is trying to say too much.
If your thumbnails use blue and white, your banner should too. Consistency builds recognition. Viewers should feel like they're on the same channel no matter what page they land on.
White text on a dark background. Yellow on navy. Red on black. If the text blends into the image, viewers won't read it. Test with the contrast checker if you're unsure.
Mobile view shrinks your banner to a tiny square. Open your exported PNG on a phone and check. If the text vanishes, it's too small.
Your Instagram handle in the top-right corner? Invisible on mobile. Put it inside the safe zone, or expect mobile visitors to miss it.
New creators often confuse these three. Here's the difference:
| Element | Size | Where It Shows |
|---|---|---|
| Banner (Channel Art) | 2560 × 1440 | Top of your channel page |
| Thumbnail | 1280 × 720 | Next to each video in search and feeds |
| Avatar (Profile Picture) | 800 × 800 | Next to comments, on your channel, in search |
They should share a color palette. When someone clicks a thumbnail and lands on your channel, the visual jump between pages should feel seamless.
Click Save in the toolbar. Your work stores in your browser's local storage. Come back to this page anytime and click Restore Saved Project on the upload screen. Your canvas, text layers, colors, and logo all come back exactly as you left them.
Important: clearing your browser data will erase saved projects. If you plan to iterate over several days, export the PNG first as a backup reference.
Upload at 2560 × 1440 pixels. Your important text and logo should sit inside the central safe zone of 1546 × 423 pixels so they stay visible on mobile, tablet, desktop, and TV. The tool exports at the full 2560×1440 automatically.
The safe zone is the central region of the banner that stays visible on every device. Anything outside it gets cropped on smaller screens — sometimes entirely. Mobile portrait view is the tightest, showing only 1546 × 423 pixels. Our green guide marks this region so you never lose text to the crop.
Click Add Heading Layer, type your text, then use the 3D Depth slider in the layer editor. Depth goes from 0 (flat) to 120 pixels (heavy extrusion). For best results, use a dark shadow color against a bright text color.
No. Everything runs in your browser using HTML5 canvas. Images never leave your device. Nothing is sent to our servers, and nothing is stored on the internet. This is one of the most private banner designers available.
Yes. Click Save in the toolbar to store your project in the browser. On the upload screen, click Restore Saved Project to load it. Your work persists across page reloads and browser restarts. Just don't clear browser data.
PNG at 2560 × 1440 pixels — YouTube's recommended size. No watermark, no compression. The file downloads directly from your browser to your Downloads folder.
Yes. No sign-up, no credit card, no watermark, no daily limit. Use it as many times as you want. SkillsInsider keeps the tool free through unobtrusive ads on the page, not through charging users.
Not yet. The tool ships with 11 professional fonts chosen for banner readability — Anton, Bebas Neue, Montserrat, Oswald, Russo One, Righteous, Chakra Petch, Exo 2, Syncopate, Pacifico, and Permanent Marker. Custom font upload is on the roadmap.
YouTube crops the banner on mobile to fit a narrower aspect ratio. Text or logos placed outside the safe zone get cut off. Use the green guide in the canvas to keep important elements centered, then test with the mobile preview.
Yes. Click Upload Logo in the Brand Logo section. A PNG with a transparent background works best. You can resize and reposition it using Logo drag mode. Place it inside the safe zone for consistent visibility.
Not if you export at 2560 × 1440. The image we produce is the exact resolution YouTube wants. If your original background image was smaller than 2560 wide, YouTube may stretch it slightly — upload a high-resolution source for the sharpest result.
Only if you own the rights or the photo is licensed for commercial use. Use sources like Unsplash, Pexels, or your own camera. Do not use images from Google Image search — most are copyrighted.